- By Alexis Baden-Mayer
Organic Consumers Association, February 20, 2013
For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Environment and Climate Resource Center page.
Author’s note: On Sunday, Feb. 17, I marched with the OCA at the Forward on Climate rally in Washington, D.C. At one point, our banner, “Cook Organic Not the Planet,” caught the eye of a dairy farmer. He approached. I handed him a flyer and launched into my pitch about how organic agriculture has the power to bring dangerous carbon dioxide levels back down to the safe level of 350 parts-per-million. He nodded politely, then stopped me short with this “If they frack all the farms, there isn’t going to be any organic.” Back home, I sat down at my computer to research farms and fracking. I learned that there’s a growing movement of farmers around the country who are fighting fracking. And I found some stories that should give all of us pause.
Their names are Carol, Steve & Jackie, Susan, Marilyn & Robert, and Christine. They share a bond. Two bonds, actually: They all own, or owned, farms. And those farms, along with their own health and the health of their farm animals, have all been ruined by fracking.
More than 600,000 fracking wells and waste injection sites have popped up across the country, according to ProPublica. The oil and gas industry, along with federal regulators, would have you believe that injecting trillions of gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth is harmless.
But tell that to Jacki Schilke of North Dakota, who lost two dogs, five cows, chickens – and her health – after 32 oil and gas wells sprouted up within three miles of her ranch. Or Christine Moore, a horse rescuer in Ohio, who sold her farm after a well went up five miles from her farm, creating an oily film on her water and making her too sick to care for her horses.
With hundreds of thousands of fracking wells and waste injection sites in the U.S., it’s likely that our food supply already contains water, plants and animals (meat) contaminated with fracking chemicals. While we hear a lot about drinking water contamination, including people’s water catching on fire straight out of the faucet, that shouldn’t be our only concern. Contaminated crops and farm animals raised for food are also possible avenues for exposing humans to fracking chemicals.
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